RSS Feeds
|
US Edition
Babblebaby
|
Defamer
|
Gizmodo
|
Kotaku
|
Lifehacker
I would not like to meet the weirdo who designed this Olio coin bank-cum*-clock in a club—he probably uses his to keep his Rohypnols dry. $21.95, from Wrappables this is the chocolate teapot, the bone china stiletto or the USB thong of the gadget world. [Wrappables via 7Gadgets]
*Huhuhuhuh, she said "cum."
This is the Benefield Anechoic Facility in Edwards Air Force Base: the largest chamber of its kind in the world —a room in which RF and sound signals don't bounce off the walls, so you can get clean radio frequency testing on all kinds of gear. In this case, electronic warfare systems in huge toys like Hercules, B-1B and B-2 bombers, Raptor fighters and all kind of airplanes.
We've already covered denim crash helmets and now here's a bamboo version from Roof. The shell is constructed entirely from bamboo fibres and has passed the E22-05 safety requirements needed in Europe.
The cost of this limited edition helmet is $378 (£189) and it's available in the UK. There, I managed to use the words wood, helmet and head without even the tiniest bit of innuendo. Are you proud of me, or just very disappointed? [Treehugger]
Following on last year's P2, the new Viliv X2 AIO comes with absolutely everything on a tight 4.3-inch screen package: movie, music and picture playback with picture in picture capabilities, digital TV tuner, GPS and electronic dictionary, which would be great if you live in Korea, where it's going to be launched.
The Travelsound i50 is a portable speaker for the iPod Shuffle from Creative Japan. Attach it to your Shuffle and suddenly you've got what looks like a very cool, very Vegas-baby, retro-style Ronson cigarette lighter that plays your tunes.
Consisting of two satellite towers and a downward-firing amplified subwoofer, these red LED-illuminated Rosetta speakers from Britz have been designed with computer or gaming set-ups in mind. Featuring IHSS (Indeptendent Harmonic Surround Sound), they are probably a bit too weedy for hardcore gamers. If you ask me, both towers and sub look like the kind of vase you'd find in a funeral home.
Someone in the Netherlands transformed a water tower into a cool vertical apartment. The results are amazing and the spiral stairs are guaranteed to keep you fit and/or drive you mad with so much spinning. Looking at the guy sliding down the wall, someone already thought about a better route for descent. [Materialicious via Boing Boing]
Captain Ødegård created this Creative Zen Stone out of pine, although he seems to have accidentally scaled up the dimensions to a huge 8.25" x 5.5" x 2". Check out a video of it in use after the jump.
The iSpin is a mixer that uses two docked iPods as inputs, and provides a range of effects like reverb, flange, hi/low pass filter and scratching sounds. While this would be fine for some DJs, it won't suit everyone because you can't beat-match with it.
It's probably more suited to a house party than a club, but at $140 it's a fun piece of kit. It's available in isilver on white or red on black, to match your iPods. [iLounge]
For a $232 price tag, this Japan-only Wizz CSDP-500 portable multimedia player and matching CLCD-507 7-inch LCD dual screens looks like a good option for video-on-the-go fans. The $86 40-ounce CSDP-500 plays DVDs of all kinds as well as video, music and picture files in MPEG-4,MP3,WMA and JPEG formats using it's built-in USB port, SD or Memory Stick slot in the 480×234 pixel screens with built-in 1.5W speakers. [Impress AV Watch]
Artist Frank Boelter has constructed a 9-metre paper boat from the stuff used to make Tetrabrik packs and is sailing it up the Elbe. The 37-year old artist came up with the idea one breakfast time, while he was sitting at his kitchen table fiddling with an empty milk carton, which he cut up and made into a scaled-down model. See how they built it after the jump.
Epson has debuted its new color scanner. Aimed at amateur photo freaks in a hurry, the V500 cuts warm-up time and scanning time, meaning you can get through a pile of negs, slides and photos in less time than other scanners, thanks to its ReadyScan LED technology.
You can blow pictures up to 17 x 22 inches from both film or print format, and the scanner comes with both Digital ICE and Epson Easy Photo Fix programs. Cost is $250 and the V500 is available right now. [Akihabara]
A few days ago, Ryan Block, Pete Rojas and Josh at Engadget wrote up a plan of attack for Palm and its aging Treo. Addressing problems with every aspect of the still useful but no longer glorious smartphone, it had some good points, and you could tell that they were writing it out of genuine concern. Today, Ed Colligan, Palm CEO wrote back.
Our colleague over at Prime Diary has hipped us to a pair of Transformers hand fans that serve a purpose while upping your geek-cred. Painted as either Optimus Prime or Megatron, each fan has a removable top revealing a soft fan blade that offers instant cool when you and your Autobots roll out. Judging from the box art, it not only looks like a Japan exclusive, but comes in Ultraman, Spiderman, Batman and Superman flavors as well. More pics can be found at Prime Diary. [Prime Diary]
I got to play with DivX's Connected set top box that we showed you last night, and found a few more things out about the prototype. (Much of this could change by launch.)
•DivX Connected Server runs on PC, and does the file serving as well as the decompression of most video content.
•Only supports DivX video. No WMV or Quicktime files worked for us.
•Non-HD video files stream and play quickly / Fast-forward with no delay or lag over b/g WiFi. Without N support for WiFi, HD content needs ethernet.
•Music doesn't support AAC or WMA formats.
•There's nice integration with Stage 6 (DivX's version of Youtube, but mostly filled with geek/porn content) but there's delay in streaming, and it doesn't buffer, even when you pause.
When we're sending naked pictures of ourselves to people we've never met, we want the process to go as quick as possible. Industrial Facility and luckybite -- two UK Design firms -- know that, and have teamed up with Madori Kuroda, Panasonic Japan's Chief mobile device designer, to create a prototype phone dock called the Panasonic Pixi.
The Pixi, designed for the Mixi -- Japan's MySpace equivalent -- has six buttons that will use your phone's LCD screen, existing photos and internet connection to send your pictures directly to a diary, community, or pedophile on Mixi. There's no pricing or information about the gadget's release just yet -- in fact, the only thing we can be sure about is that it's going to look like a toy you'd find in a cereal box in the 80's.
We've all watched Fight Club and wished that Brad Pitt's rippling biceps would be a bit more, well, 3D....right? Either way, Mitsubishi is releasing 3D Blu-ray players that will be able to make any 2D movie 3-dimensional. Before you get too excited, just know that you'll still have to be wearing 3D glasses (hip-looking, 80's-styled 3D glasses) to get the full viewing experience.
It's nice that 3D won't just be reserved to an old creepy Michael Jackson space movie but it'll be interesting to see how this thing actually works when it comes out. You guys know you can't really do true 3d without recording video stereoscopically first, right? [SciFi]
Posted by Seamus Byrne at 10:15 AM on August 24, 2007
Was just about to post this an hour and a half ago when the tubes got full. Hurrah for X-Series jumping in now to save the day. Here's what happened while you were sleeping...
Chain mail protects you from office enemies.
Thinkgeek, you've outdone yourselves... but please, wear this in private and to SCA only!
Video of PlayTV, PS3 to PSP DVR walkthrough.
Sony's really working on the PS3's general entertainment credentials. Now, about some games...
New batteries run on same fuel as geeks - sugar.
Would make my office smell like cooked biscuits?
Pice interface merges multitouch with physical world.
Yeah, I don't know what that really means either.
World's tallest LEGO tower rises over Toronto.
Not half as stylish as the previous record holder.
Finally, graffiti and technology have joined to create something beautiful. Mark Ecko is designing digital citylights that will consist of a giant LCD screen and a Bluetooth interface that will allow passerby's to "spray graffiti" by accessing the screen via Bluetooth. They will then be able to use their cell phone cursor to spray any phallic object and/or clever curse words they can think of.
Not sure when or even if this will come out (and it looks like it'll be in Germany) -- but it's a godsend for tech-savvy gang members. By the way, if you're not sure what a "citylight" is -- it's that large, vertical LCD screen that you see in the picture. [Ads of the World]
Despite what the floor salesmen at Best Buy tell you about Plasmas vs. LCDs, LCD TVs actually do get burn-in. Sure, it takes longer to make that "Fox News" logo locked into your TV even when you're watching, say, The Venture Bros., but it'll get there. As you can see in this 22-inch Sharp LCD at Bic Camera in Japan, the "0" in the 1980 yen appears even when the number doesn't. We just wish the guys who took this picture knew how to use a camera correctly.
UPDATE: Sharp's Senior Vice President said that the condition can be reversed by "exercising" the pixel by playing snow, or turning off the screen for a while. What he didn't say was whether this works on all screens, and how long it takes to clear the stuck pixels. [HDGuru]
There are two reasons to watch this Fall's remake of The Bionic Woman on NBC. One is Michelle Ryan, English actress and utter, utter hottie. The other is Katee Sackoff, Battlestar Galactica's chewer-upper of Cylon raiders —but we all know about her hotness already, so let's focus on the new girl. There's a video preview of the series and a poll about her after the jump.
Oh, man. The show that best combined ridiculous "technology" with over-the-top "athleticism," American Gladiators, is coming back to TV. Yes, NBC is resurrecting the early-'90s classic, a show that many of us grew up on. If you weren't scared of Nitro when you were a kid, you're a bigger man than I. This could easily be an epic disaster, but I'd like to think that it'll be completely awesome and I'll enjoy it just as much as I did when I was 10. Bring on the tennis ball launchers and giant Q-tips! [Variety via Dlisted]
Ben Heck, everyone's favorite video-game modder, has gone and done it again. This time, he's gone and stuffed an Atari AND an NES into a handheld portable, and dubbed it the NEStari. As usual, he goes through plenty of detail showing how he did it, and as usual, it's way too complicated for 99% of us to attempt on our own. [Ben Heck]
We've been lucky enough not to be carried in a stretcher, but if we're going to be, we'd want it to be in one of these. This design for a Caterpillar stretcher looks standard at first, but can tilt up to a reclining or sitting wheelchair and glide gracefully up and down stairs. This lets the paramedics easily carry you down elevator-less buildings without risking breaking your body even more. Still not designed for the morbidly obese, however. [Yanko Design]
In a blatant example of downright-lazy journalism, the Wall Street Journal has just discovered the fact that, OH NOES, there is slang coming from the internet! And kids are using it irl (that's "in real life," for you WSJ writers).
It's the exact same story that pathetic local news stations use for scare stories between "Your New Carpet could give you AIDS" and "Highway killings: more common than you think." But it's even worse, as it's in a "respected" newspaper and it's a good five years beyond when this could even questionably be considered newsworthy.
Here's another spin on that countdown clock idea, but this one takes more of a Hollywood movie star approach. Decide your goal from among the few printed strips of paper included (or go ahead and make your own), slide that goal into the slot on the front of this clock, enter the day and year of your big special occasion, and you're off and counting.
What this has to do with a clapboard is anybody's guess, but maybe this is reserved for those Hollywood starlets who want to give themselves a measured amount of time to get that plum starring role before they leave town, going back to the soda shop whence they came. Beyond all that, it can also just tell you the time of day. [Design Town, via Oh Gizmo]
Unlike the original version, the NES emulator for the iPhone works great now —except for the sound. There's still one big problem: the lack of tactile feedback on the buttons. Natetrue, the creator of iBrickr, came up with an ingenious... Read More »
Paramount and Dreamworks' recent decision to dump Blu-ray and go HD DVD exclusive may have had something to do with the $150 million incentive, but Paramount's Chief Technical Officer says it's not just that. He lays out the technical reasons why HD DVD is a superior platform, many of which we've seen and heard before.
AU: Personally, I'm all for HD DVD coming out on top. It's the better specced technology AND gives us consumer-folk a better deal with no region codes, and Blu-rays advantages lie in disc capacity (not that big a deal, even long term as both formats will multilayer) and studio support. If studios start to realign, for whatever reason, then that could swing it for HD DVD. The sluggish PS3 isn't helping Blu-ray as much as they'd hoped... though here in Australia the stats are abyssmal all round.FWIW, I've got both in my house - Blu-ray on PS3, and HD DVD on Xbox 360.
Venzero's black-sheened players have always looked good, which is why the Venzero Linq looks so promising. Besides having the standard MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, OGG, JPEG and MPEG4 playback, it also supports Wi-Fi streaming from internet radio stations and your Windows Media Player 11 on a PC. That means you don't need to jam-pack its 4GB of memory with songs if you're at home—you can just stream your entire library over wireless. But if you do want portable storage, there's an extra 2GB microSD slot for a total of 6GB of memory. Available at the end of September. [Venzero via GizmLounge]
Similar to the way that the power cables on the original Xbox had problems with possibly catching on fire, the Xbox 360 Racing Wheel can possibly cause your wheel to "overheat" and "release smoke." Thanks to a couple instances of this happening, Microsoft is instituting a program where you can get an AC adapter replacement for your wheel free of charge.
When a couple of Swiss kids on holiday in Hungary found a circular object by a river, they did the logical thing and started playing Frisbee with it. They were gob-smacked to learn, however, that their toy was, in fact, a Soviet anti-tank landmine.
Those of you who have managed to brick or accidentally upgrade your PSP have been looking for this Pandora's Battery software even if you didn't realize it. The app lets you turn any battery into an official Sony Jigkick battery, which is what their repair staff uses to unbrick (and also downgrade) your PSP. Best of all, any homebrew-enabled PSP can do this, so you can just find a buddy with a working handheld to do this to your battery so you can fix your own PSP afterwards. [Maxconsole]
This Plantronics Calisto Pro set takes your standard Bluetooth headset and adds in landline and Skype dialing, which means you get the big three (Skype, home, cell) all in one dorky-looking device. The base station has a USB connector to hook into your PC for Skype and Yahoo calls, a DECT 6.0 handset to handle landline calls, and the headset to connect to both these plus a cellphone. The price for all this convenience while you work at home in your underpants? $279 starting September. [PRnewswire via Web Worker Daily]
The title of world's tallest LEGO tower just shifted from California to Toronto, where energetic LEGO Master builders Erik Therkelsen (at left), Per Knudsen and 12,000 of their closest friends stacked up enough of the plastic bricks—more than 465,000 of them—to create a 96.1-footer.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it's now the world's largest LEGO tower, beating that 94.3-foot erection in LEGOLAND in Carlsbad, California. Dozens of plus-shaped modules were stacked up with a cherry picker to complete the huge structure. There's no word on how long that tower will stand. [Toronto 680 News, via Yahoo News]
The headsets that come for free with the Xbox 360 don't exactly scream quality. Sure, they get the job done when it comes to trash talking the 11-year-olds you're losing to in Shadowrun, but the one-eared design that makes you listen to both the TV and your headset isn't really an optimal solution. The new Ear Force X3 is a full set of headphones with a high-quality mic attached. It gives you the benefit of spatial sound, so you can hear those middle school jerks sneaking up on you before they pop you with a headshot. Boy, isn't gaming fun? [Product Page]
newVideoPlayer("viziohype_gawker.flv", 475, 376);The Pitch This commercial's official title is "Helping Hand," but "Manmade Disasters" would've been more accurate. The spot opens with a dude balancing his old tube TV on a balcony ledge, then scanning around to make sure no... Read More »
Olympus, trying to set a record for the number of cameras introduced in one day, also updated its Stylus line of point-and-shoot cameras with three colorful new models, the 820, 830 and 1200. All of them have what Olympus calls an "all weather" body, image stabilization, shadow adjustment goodness, and now they all have face detection to help you focus on what's really important.
The 4000 DPI resolution and 100 inches per second tracking speed of this Razer 3G Laser Sensor will probably give you as much of an advantage in BioShock as you're going to get, short of injecting yourself with a "Not-Suck-At-FPS" Plasmid. At 4000DPI, the imaging is so good you could hold it up to your chest and it'll tell you if you have emphysema. Besides these features, it's also got 32kb of onboard memory, 1000Hz Ultrapolling, 1ms response, an "Always-On" mode, a gold-plated USB connector, but doesn't have interchangeable weights like the Microsoft Sidewinder we saw yesterday did. Launches in October in Phantom White and Banshee Blue for $79. [Bringer of Silent Death via Yahoo]
Although the Japanese often improve on many of our gadgets, replacing the dirt in an ant farm with a nutrient-rich gel doesn't quite work as well as you'd think. Instead of digging tunnels and generally surviving, the gel ants in this Antquarium live only a short time by feeding on the dead flesh of their brothers and sisters. Great if you're trying to find who the most survival-worthy ant is, lousy if you're trying to keep them as pets. [Amazon via Tokyo Mango]
As if we weren't sick and tired enough of the whole diamond-encrusted solid gold bling craze that's going on right now, this Widex diamond-encrusted solid 24-carat gold hearing aid beats all, giving new meaning to the term "golden ears." You know, we don't even like to use the word "bling." Shit, now we've used it again. Anyway, apparently the proprietors of such a product optimistically hope that hearing-impaired people can be deaf and literally dumb, too.
Look at it, festooned with 220 diamonds to be worn by pathetic, cash-soaked and deaf fops with more money than brains. All that's left is to quote the price that some damnfool sucker will pay for this over-the-top golden hearing aid and its controller. It's £25,000, or $49,590 if there are any Americans stupid enough to bite. Please, no. Don't. [PC News]
Pico is a computer interface that can move electromagnetic pucks, merging the digital and physical worlds. In this video from earlier this year, see how researcher James Patten has used his unique combination of projection, magnets and computing to help visualize problems such as determining the best place to put a group of cellphone network transmission towers. Imagine the games you could play with this thing! [James Patten]
Matt Tovey made this really slick table using 434 Itanium CPUs on the way to the trash can. Rather than waste some perfectly good hardware (list price as of last year for all those chips: over $800,000), he made a striking and unique desk for himself. Check out his detailed step-by-step, with plenty of photos, over at his blog. Nice work, Matt. I'll take two. [Matt's Projects via Neatorama]
Sony turned its Playstation booth into a bathroom for this year's Games Convention in Leipzig. So, dear Giz readers, captions please—the ruder the better. [Yahoo News via Spluch]
Oh boy, the format war sure is heating up! Isn't in so fun?! HD DVD bribed a couple of studios back to exclusivity! Blu-ray is touring malls with a giant kiosk! There's no end in sight! Both camps are spending a downright obscene amount of money to convince you, John Q. Consumer, that their format is the right choice. Well, is it working?
